Newsletter | Housing Edition: August 2025

FEATURED POST

How to Conduct a Housing Needs Assessment Using PolicyMap: A Case Study in Indianapolis, IN

Home prices in Indianapolis have surged by more than 80% since 2013, leaving many households, especially in the city’s core, struggling to keep up. PolicyMap demonstrates how a housing needs assessment that integrates affordability, accessibility, and housing quality can help leaders understand not just where shortages exist, but why they persist. Explore how local governments and nonprofits can use data-driven insights to target reinvestment and align housing with real community needs.

ON THE BLOG

How We Used the Moody’s Analytics Housing Gap Data to Craft a $2 Billion, 30,000 Unit Housing Plan in Philadelphia

Philadelphia’s $2 billion HOME initiative takes a data-driven approach to solving the city’s housing crisis, targeting the creation and preservation of 30,000 units. With housing gap estimates from Moody’s Analytics, PolicyMap, and Reinvestment Fund guiding every step, the plan aligns funding, location, and affordability with precision. See the data that is driving real-world change in one of America’s most housing-challenged cities.

Webinar: Bringing the Housing Shortage Into Sharper Focus

The U.S. faces a decade-long housing shortfall, driving up rents and home prices while worsening affordability nationwide. Despite growing political attention, confusion over the scale and nature of the crisis persists, with estimates often conflating different parts of the housing market. This discussion clarifies the shortage’s scope, examines local impacts, and explores how supply and demand shape affordability, providing a clearer foundation for policymakers to address the challenge.

Watch Now

Data Walkthrough: Housing Gap Estimates from Moody’s Analytics

Learn how PolicyMap’s Housing Shortage Data Tool pinpoints where housing is most needed and how it can guide smarter policy and investment decisions.

Watch Now

CUSTOMER STORY

Novogradac Releases OZ 2.0 Mapping Tool After Passage of One Big Beautiful Bill Act

Novogradac’s new Opportunity Zones 2.0 Mapping Tool is powered by PolicyMap. Released after the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the tool uses current census tract data to project OZ eligibility and help communities, investors, and policymakers get ready for the next round of designations in 2027.

*New & Exclusive Data* – Housing Gap Estimates from Moody’s Analytics, PolicyMap, and Reinvestment Fund have been added to PolicyMap. The Housing Gap Estimates use American Communities Survey data to estimate the level of units of housing, both owner and renter, a given census tract is short. Data is available for the most recent 5 year ACS period (2019-2023), and for census tracts within 350 of the largest cities in the United States.

*New Data* – Claritas PRIZM® Premier is now available on PolicyMap! This detailed segmentation dataset offers insight into consumer behavior and lifestyle patterns across 68 demographic groups.

*New Data* – CRA small business and small farm loan data is updated through 2023. This is a full data refresh, adding more historical data to the “Leading Lenders.” This includes the expansion of lending from the banks over time.

*New Data* – Census County Business Patterns Establishments are now available on production.

Data on Bridges in Poor Condition from the U.S. Department of Transportation has been updated to 2025.

The USDA Farmers’ Market point data has been updated to 2025, including new filters for food access programs and special production methods.

BLS Local Area Unemployment (LAU) monthly statistics data has been updated through June 2025.

County Business Patterns data from the Census Bureau has been updated to 2023.

Mortgage Loans and Mortgage Loans Denial data from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) and PolicyMap have been updated to 2024.

HUD CDBG Eligibility data has been updated to 2024.

Valassis vacancy data has been updated through 2025 Qtr2.

Annual Flu data from the CDC has been updated to the 2024-2025 season.

Housing Price Index data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has been updated to 2024 data.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD) dataset has been updated to the 2023-2024 School Year.

Chronic Health Conditions data for Medicare Beneficiaries from CMS has been updated to 2023.

The CMS Opioid Claims data has been updated through 2023.

We are committed to our promise of curated, cleaned, standardized, and always updated data. We’re posting real-time updates on our website, LinkedIn and BlueSky.

Published Research

Explore scholarly works from students and researchers using PolicyMap.

Documentation of Individual-level Social Determinants of Health Among Adults Diagnosed with Cancer in the United States, published in Scientific Reports

Navigating Text Data Mining Training for Humanities Librarians: A Microcredential Case Study from Baylor University, published in BEARdocs

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Open PolicyMap Training Sessions

Offered twice a week. Register here.

Level 1: Learning the basics of PolicyMap

Level 2: Learn the Data Loader, Multi-Layer Maps, and other Advanced Features

Open to non-subscribers. Course times rotate weekly. Don’t see a time that works for you?

Join Us!

National Council of State Housing Authorities 2025 Annual Conference & Showplace
October 4 – 7, 2025
New Orleans, LA

PolicyMap is excited to join NCSHA for their Annual Conference & Showplace and network with affordable housing leaders from around the country! Stop by booth #102 to meet the PolicyMap team and learn more about our geographic data offerings. Learn more.

Newsletter | Housing Edition: August 2025

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